


everything else left up to you

by hippolytas



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: F/M, Yuletide 2020, extremely spoilers, post RotT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28143726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hippolytas/pseuds/hippolytas
Summary: Overnight, it seemed, everyone in the palace had become an authority on childrearing. Attolia didn’t mind it from her attendants, who tended not to advise so much as gossip freely about things their mothers and sisters had said as they cooed at the babies, but from the old baronesses who had dismissed her as unwomanly and unnatural since her coronation, it rankled.“Phresine tells me you have already dismissed a nurse,” the king said from the bed as Chloe finished wiping off the queen’s makeup and placed her earrings back in their box.Attolia was silent for a moment.
Relationships: Attolia | Irene/Eugenides
Comments: 27
Kudos: 112
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	everything else left up to you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alamorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide!

In Attolia, the tradition was to take a baby on the tenth day after the birth to the main temple, where the high priestess would write the child’s name down in the temple records. After the baby had its name, the parents could introduce it to their families and there was wine and feasting.

Delaying for the return of her king, Attolia had put off the usual ceremony and it was only after Eugenides had arrived back in the capital that the new prince and princess were brought to the acropolis. The Attolians, still ecstatic at their recent turn of fortune, showered the open carriage in petals and the king made a low comment to his wife about the success the flower vendors must be having. Too happy to speak, she shifted the bundle in her arms so that she could press a kiss to the king’s head. The crowd roared.

For a prince and a princess, there were more ceremonies after the naming. The high priestess of Hephestia poured oil over the prince’s head to anoint him as the heir to Attolia. The princess began to cry when she too was anointed and some of the oil ran into her eyes. One of the nurses stepped forward to take her but the king was faster. 

He was wearing one of the wooden hands, smooth and polished to a shine, not a grain of rough surface to be found. Eugenides had received an explosive lecture on the subject of blades and infants from one of his sisters upon his return from the north and he had, to Attolia’s surprise, taken the words to heart. Though Attolia agreed with her sister-in-law and had said as much, she had also worried about the effect of yet another loss on Eugenides, who had rarely gone without the hook since the assassination attempt and was still deeply affected by the war.

He did not seem to regret the difference now as he cradled his daughter in the crook of his right arm without concern for her restless feet. The king gently dabbed at the oil with his sleeve and made soothing noises until she quieted again. The high priestess continued with the ceremony as if it had never been interrupted and then, Attolia had her heirs, anointed and blessed by the old gods and the new.

Overnight, it seemed, everyone in the palace had become an authority on childrearing. Attolia didn’t mind it from her attendants, who tended not to advise so much as gossip freely about things their mothers and sisters had said as they cooed at the babies, but from the old baronesses who had dismissed her as unwomanly and unnatural since her coronation, it rankled. 

“Phresine tells me you have already dismissed a nurse,” the king said from the bed as Chloe finished wiping off the queen’s makeup and placed her earrings back in their box.

Attolia was silent for a moment. “She did not—” she began to say haltingly, then stopped. “I wanted to nurse them after they were born and she did not approve.”

He held out his hand and she joined him on the bed. “They have their wet nurse,” she said. “But there are two of them and they were hungry and I wanted to feed them.”

“You are Attolia and you are their mother. You don’t need some old matron’s permission to do as you wish.”

“I know that,” she snapped. Her fears were so tangled and so numerous, she hardly knew how to begin to describe them to him.

She knew that whatever his childhood difficulties, he had never doubted his parents’ love. Attolia wasn’t sure if it had ever occurred to her to expect it of her own parents. Her mother had died when she was still a small child and the king had had little use for his daughter. She had seen him infrequently until she had unexpectedly become his heir. Her brother, she thought, may have loved her. He had brought her presents sometimes and told her stories and held her hand when she had become overwhelmed by the court as a small girl. “I know I will ask them to make sacrifices for the crown,” she said thickly, “and I want them to know that I—”

“They could not doubt it,” he said, pressing his lips to her forehead as he wrapped an arm around her assuringly. 

There was a knock and Luria came in with Hega, one of the nurses, each carrying one of the babies. Gen carefully handed her Eugenia and took Hector from Luria. 

Eugenia blinked and, recognizing who had taken her, began to squirm and wave her arms. She would want to be fed soon and that would set off her brother. 

“They look just like you.” Gen caught and kissed one of Hector’s tiny flailing hands.

“They look like babies,” she said. They were small and red and impossibly fragile and sometimes when Attolia held them, she could only think of all the things she’d broken.

“They have your nose,” said Eugenides, as if he hadn’t heard her, “and your eyes.” He ran a finger lightly over his son’s soft skin. “They are going to be as beautiful as their mother and we are going to have to beat their suitors away with sticks.”

“You can exile all of the suitors to Ferria,” she told him, finally smiling and nudging him with her knee. “We’ll start a colony.”

Eugenia, who was always fussy where her brother was quiet, started to gulp and Attolia rocked her gently, anticipating her cries.

It didn’t help. Eugenia’s face pinched and reddened and she began to wail. Already in the last month, Attolia had spent what seemed like entire nights soothing one twin or the other to no avail. Sometimes, well past exhaustion, she had relinquished them to the nurses, in tears herself and throat choked with the feeling of her failure. Tonight, to her great relief, Eugenia quieted when she began to nurse.

Hesione, Gen’s oldest sister, who had come from her estate to attend her cousin who was Eddis in the late stages of her pregnancy and who wrangled her own four children as if it was nothing, had seen Attolia’s exhaustion and assured her it was normal, that babies cried, that it wouldn’t last forever. In the middle of the night, with her husband far away driving back the Mede and her ears ringing with her children’s shrill cries, it had been hard to believe.

Eugenides continued to entertain Hector and when he met her eyes, Attolia felt like he could see everything she was thinking as clearly as if she had written it out on a sheet of parchment. It was the sort of scene the poets would never capture, without heroes or tyrants. In that moment, they might have been any family on the Peninsula, Irene and Eugenides no different than any other parent holding their heart in their hands.

**

The following week, the queen of Eddis was spending her morning on a shady porch as Sounis alternated reading aloud to her and anxiously offering to summon servants to bring chilled lemon water and more pillows to make her comfortable as she reclined on her side.

Eddis waved off the concern and listened to him, the sure and comforting rhythm of his voice reciting the Pindaric Odes. 

He paused in his reading to ask again if she was alright. Eddis had turned away and was now staring off the porch and out to the sea, brow furrowed. Briefly, she closed her eyes. Sounis watched her anxiously. “More false contractions,” Helen told him faintly. They had been coming off and on for days.

Several minutes later he noticed her knuckles had gone white.

“Helen,” Sounis set aside his book and looked at her with concern, “I think we should send for Galen. How long—”

“Since I woke up this morning,” she cut him off, teeth clenched.

The effect that this information had on her attendants, who had been lounging at a distance to give the couple privacy, was immediate.

Sounis wanted to carry his wife back to her rooms, but Eddis stood up, walked several steps, then sat back down and refused to move. The physicians and midwives were sent for at a run. “The baby is _coming_ ,” Eddis said, allowing him to help move her to the side of the couch. As soon as she was sitting on the edge, her attendants unceremoniously pushed Sounis aside and began to give instructions.

By the time Attolis arrived, summoned from the guard’s bath, the baby had been born.

Attolia, sweeping in not long after with doctors and attendants at her heels, took in the scene at a glance: Helen, sweaty and shocked, holding her wailing daughter, Sophos trying to convince her to let him wrap her in his shirt, and Attolia’s husband half clothed and trying to give orders at the same time as everyone else. His voice was rising as he argued with Xanthe, Eddis’s senior attendant. Eddis’s attendants and guards and the servants who had come running in response to the shouting milled about the porch, adding to the chaos. 

“Everyone out,” Attolia commanded. The order carried, even though she had not raised her voice. Extraneous people scurried out of the room like mice when the cat came home. She pointed to Sounis and Xanthe. “You and you, stay.” To her husband, who was opening his mouth to protest, Attolia said, “You may stay if you are quiet and out of the way, and if Eddis does not object.” She looked to the doctors, who had already gone to Helen. Galen immediately began to examine Eddis, asking questions, and sternly reprimanding her for not summoning them immediately. Eddis protested that she hadn’t known the contractions were real and hadn’t wanted to make a fuss. He seemed pleased that she was arguing but no less stern in his admonishment. Meanwhile, Petrus checked the newborn, who had stopped wailing as he carefully cleaned her and wrapped her in soft new linens.

Queen and child were pronounced healthy and the doctors finally allowed Sounis to carry his wife away to rest. 

Eddis and Sounis departed a few weeks later to mark their ceremonies and rituals in their own countries. They took with them most of the Eddisian women who had come to attend their queen, leaving the court feeling strangely quiet as Attolian barons who had come back from the war with the king returned to their estates for the harvest and the work of fall commenced.

**

Eugenides could slip from bed without waking even as light a sleeper as Irene, so it wasn’t unusual for her to wake in the middle of the night to find him gone, the space beside her already cold. If she had often wished to stop haunting her husband’s dreams, Attolia had not wanted to see her prayers answered like this. His nightmares were now of war and dark places and he had admitted that he could rarely go back to sleep after they woke him.

In the past, he might have been creeping anonymously through the city or visiting with one of the handful of people he liked in the palace. Attolia still felt a wave of grief and guilt when she thought of Relius, who might have been peaceably seducing the locals on a quiet country estate if not for her. 

Attolia rose, pulled on a robe, and slipped through the dark passage that led to what were traditionally the queen’s rooms and for now, served as the nursery. After she had given birth, with Eugenides still far away in the north, she had wanted the babies close. The queen’s apartments were larger and more extensive than was necessary for any nursery and many of the fine furniture and wall hangings had simply been pushed to the side for the time being, but the king and queen could easily visit and check on their children at any time without going through guardrooms and antechambers, soothing both their nightmares and their paranoia.

She could hear Eugenia’s squalling as she approached and the sound made her heart clench. When she opened the door, she found that Eugenides was pacing in front of the fire, trying to soothe his daughter without success as he argued with the nurse. 

He spotted her in the doorway and said anxiously, “She has a fever and Hega says there are only assistants in Petrus’s office.”

Attolia bit her tongue on pointing out that if Eugenia was ill, her sickly father should not be holding her as he was. Instead, she reached out to feel the princess’s forehead, which was warm but not concerningly hot.

“The assistants attend to his duties when he cannot be here,” Attolia explained, aware that as much as the king knew about the workings of the palace, the duties of the palace physician and his office were not among his interests. “They are all experienced.”

“And where is our doctor? Why can he not be summoned himself?”

“Petrus is at his hospital tonight in the city. It will take half an hour for the messenger to get there and an hour more to allow for him to find him there and collect him back.”

“Why is he at the hospital?” Eugenides demanded. “What use is a palace physician not in the palace?”

“I suppose the poor of the city love their children as much as the king does and deserve to have them cared for,” Attolia said without inflection, but her husband was too frightened to be shamed. 

Their daughter’s cries seem to grow louder and Eugenides glared at his wife. “Children die from fevers every day,” he said, perhaps recalling his cousins, Eddis’s brothers. “Why aren’t you more concerned?”

Attolia concealed her flinch at his words and reached out to take both him and the baby into her arms. “Because I have already been through this twice and have been told by the nurses and Petrus and your sisters all the things I am trying to tell you,” she said to him gently, over Eugenia’s pitiful cries. “We can pray to Ula. We can press cold cloths for her skin. No doctor will be able to keep the fever from rising, only the gods.” 

He sagged and she guided him to a seat beside the hearth. “Make the devotions and I will take her for a while,” she told him, brushing the tears from his cheeks. 

In the morning when Petrus returned, the fever had broken. The king and queen, too tired even to trek back through the passage to Attolia’s room, were dozing on a couch, the princess curled peacefully on her father’s chest.

**

The end of the war had brought an onslaught of diplomatic activity that had not yet abated months later. Since the Attolians had made no peace treaty with the Mede army as it retreated without its leaders, Hephestian envoys had to be sent to the Emperor to do so instead. Roa and Kippur were still angry and flailing, respectively, and Zaboar had sent their own explanations and excuses, worried about losing port duties from Attolian ships. The Peninsular ambassadors in Braels and the Eppidi Islands, released again from the confinement they had been forced into when their hosts had betrayed Attolia, reported that Yorn Fordad had arrived back in his country and that the Continental Powers were scrambling, trying to adjust to their own shifts in alliances and the erosion of trust caused by their decision to endanger Melenze and Ferria to weaken the power of Eugenides.

The shifts were exacerbated by the news that Gants and Southern Gants had become united. The Pents, though still the wealthiest of the Continental Powers, suddenly found themselves with a strong power on either side, both of which would happily carve into their fertile farmland. While Pent could feed itself, it had only one major port on the Middle Sea and relied on overland trade through Braels for imports from Medea and elsewhere. If the Braels ceased to be allies, the best alternative routes ran through Attolia.

“The Pents would have us believe the Continent’s betrayal was wholly the fault of the Braels,” said Attolia, trying to keep her tone level so that the babies, playing on the carpet, would not sense something was amiss and begin to cry.

The king’s smile had a dangerous edge. “It was not.”

“They wish to send us a new ambassador, along with a token of their goodwill and friendship.”

“Gods spare us from any more Pent ambassadors,” muttered the king. “I hope they are not stupid enough to try to send the last one back.”

“Not Quedue. They say they are sending the king’s aunt.” 

He whistled lowly and looked across the floor, where Chloe and Luria were entertaining the twins, trying to persuade them to roll over. “They have changed their tune then,” he murmured. “Is this to be another attempted seduction?”

“I believe she is old enough to be your grandmother,” Attolia said dryly. “Do the Pents know something about you that I do not?”

Eugenides was sitting on a cushion on the floor, where he had been playing with the twins before their attention had been usurped by her attendants. His warm hand curled around her ankle as he smiled up at her. “The other way around, I’m sure,” he murmured. Attolia held his gaze for a long moment before they both had their attention abruptly diverted. 

Eugenia, succeeding at her task, was surprised and dismayed to find herself so suddenly on her stomach and had begun to cry. Attolia watched as Chloe scooped her into her lap and distracted her. 

“And the token?” Eugenides leaned back against her skirts and rolled his eyes up at her innocently, turning the conversation back towards the Pents’ promised gesture. “Will we be getting the Attolian Skies back?”

She glared down at him. “They didn’t elaborate.”

Rumors of the Pents’ good faith gesture came soon enough, outpacing the man himself. The news that Relius was alive sent the palace into an uproar. Attolia sent Teleus with two squads to meet the ship that brought her former secretary of the archives back to Attolia.

Relius, who had certainly never been celebrated either in his old position as secretary of the archives or in his disgraced, unofficial position, was surprised by the welcome he got as people stood aside in the palace halls and cheered. He was looking slightly dazed by the time he made it to his rooms, where Attolia was waiting to greet him privately.

“My queen.” He knelt in front of her.

“Relius.” She clasped his hands in hers and examined his face carefully. The tears in his eyes she judged to be from joy and relief, not pain, and they matched the tears that were sliding down her own face. He looked pale and thin, but not otherwise harmed. Attolia knew that these things were not always visible on the surface though. She drew him up and invited him to sit.

“How are you?” she asked quietly. “And do not lie to me.”

He smiled wanly at her. “Never again,” he promised. “It has been a dull year but I was treated as a political prisoner of little importance and mostly ignored. A blow to my ego, perhaps, but fortunately nothing more. It is good to be home.”

“And we are immeasurably grateful for your return.” A small miracle, to not have lost him, on top of all the others. During the war, she had tried not to dwell on what it would mean to never know with certainty what had happened to him, but back in her palace, his absence had been a constant ache at the edges of her perception. Attolia tried to discreetly wipe her eyes but it was several minutes before she had composed herself. 

Relius was examining her in much the same way as she had looked him over. “Your children. They are healthy? And you as well?”

“Yes,” she assured him. “They are perfectly well. You will probably have to bear them more often than you wish.” Attolia smiled. “Teleus is very fond of them.”

“Ah.”

Attolia laughed outright. “I am very happy to see you, my friend. As is the rest of the court, as you saw,” she teased him lightly. 

“They will forget soon enough,” he shrugged, not bitterly.

“So, so, so. I believe Pheris cried when he heard the news,” Attolia said. 

“I am sure he was only sorry that I will soon be teaching him geometry again,” Relius said, but he smiled and Attolia was glad.

Relius spoke again. “I have missed so much. Here you have defeated the Mede and given Attolia the heirs she has needed so long. You have secured your country, my queen, and I have missed it.” He was thinking, as she was, of the long and bloody years they had spent trying to keep her throne and the price they had paid for it.

“At a heavy cost,” she said gravely. “We have badly missed your insight.”

The smile slipped from his face. “My queen,” he said. “There is something I discovered while I was away.”

She read the hesitation on his face. “Perhaps it is better that we not talk here,” Attolia said. “You should eat and rest. Eugenides is on Thegmis this morning or he would be here, but he will want to see you when he returns. Rest, and I will send for you this evening.”

After dinner, Relius came to Attolia’s apartments and the king and queen listened together to his information. Before the Pents had captured him, he told them, he had learned from the Continent’s own spies that Baron Orutus, Attolia’s secretary of the archives, had been colluding with Erondites and by extension, the Medes. 

“There is proof?” Eugenides asked. “Letters, notes?”

“All gone by now I’m sure,” Relius admitted. “With Erondites dead, what conspirator would keep the evidence of his own treason? A Melenzian spy intercepted the missives I saw but there is no way to get them now.”

“The assembly of barons may not accept your word,” Attolia warned. Orutus was not well liked, precisely, but he did have allies, and in his position he was sure to have acquired a number of secrets that he could use to mobilize his defense. They would have to act carefully.

“We need evidence in writing,” the king agreed regretfully. They talked the matter over for a long while but eventually reached the same unhappy conclusion: an arrest would have to wait.

“You are not surprised,” Attolia commented to her king after they both had embraced Relius again and finally sent him away for a hot bath and rest. 

“I never liked him,” Eugenides admitted of Orutus, hardly news to Attolia since the king liked so few of her barons. “And for such an ambitious man, he never displayed the level of competence that we had expected when we appointed him. I am surprised you agreed to wait.”

It had surprised Attolia too, to find herself secure enough to watch and gather evidence the other barons would accept instead of hanging him immediately from the walls.

“Perhaps motherhood has softened me,” she said dryly, paraphrasing an unfortunate statement the Baron Priatos had made the day before and which he had regretted immediately after catching a glimpse of the expression on her face.

Gen’s bark of laughter filled the room and Irene smiled quietly as her attendants began to prepare her for bed.

**

The Pent ambassador arrived in the new year, just after the first buds of spring. There was no great procession through the city as there had been when the Continent had first sent ambassadors before the war. Instead, carriages were sent to collect the delegation from the harbor and bring them to the palace where only Attolia waited.

The people in the throne room shifted, uncomfortable. The queen acted as if she didn’t notice that the seat beside her was empty and she motioned to the minister of ceremonies to begin the formal welcome as scheduled. He cleared his throat and proceeded with the introductions.

“Your Majesty, may I present Her Royal Highness, Thiäse, Princess of the Pents.”

Everyone watched as the ambassador approached the throne, followed by a full diplomatic retinue. There were some murmurs in the back of the crowd. Rarely had a delegation so large been sent to Attolia in its days as a single country. Some had doubts that the seneschal would be able to find room for so many secretaries and attachés.

The ambassador herself was not very tall, but she wore a powdered wig that made her seem larger than she was. Her face was powdered pale as well and she walked with a cane with a silver hawk for a handle. Her expression as she took in the throne room, the queen, and the empty throne beside the queen, was one of complete indifference.

“Welcome to Attolia,” the queen spoke in her cool voice, as unaffected as her guest. “We offer you our hospitality and protection during your stay and hope that your presence will be an opportunity to reconcile with those we thought were our friends.”

The ambassador made a formal courtesy, bending stiffly and leaning on her cane. “Thank you for your excellent words, Your Majesty. It grieves my king that so many misunderstandings have come between our two countries.”

As the ambassador spoke, there was some commotion in the back of the throne room. The crowd shifted, murmuring, then parted to let the king through. He moved without urgency, stopping twice to speak, first to one of his attendants and then to a baron standing in the court. Curled in his good arm, the crown prince appeared to be sleeping as the king finally arrived at his throne and took his seat beside his queen. The room was silent as the courtiers waited for Attolia’s reaction.

Ignoring the interruption, Attolia spoke again to the Pent ambassador. “As a small token of our friendship, we have a gift.” A servant brought forward a leather cylinder. “It is a rare scroll, one of Mehanderhan’s meditations on the virtues of trust and fidelity, translated from the original Mede,” Attolia explained.

Beside her, tucked into her husband’s arm, Hector had opened his eyes. The king shifted him to his other side and pressed a finger to his own lips, as if to warn him.

“Mama is speaking,” he murmured into his son’s wispy curls, so low that only Attolia herself heard.

As the minister of ceremonies began his own formal speech to the ambassador, Attolia leaned back in her throne and spoke to her husband without turning her head.

“We have two children, do we not?”

“Last I checked,” responded the king, bouncing his son on his knee. Attolia waited. She would not be forced into asking him where her daughter might be. Eventually, the king cracked. “She is with our guard captain.”

Attolia pressed her lips together, hiding a smile. The minister finished speaking and she leaned forward again.

The ambassador presented her own gift and then was supposed to say a few more words now. Instead of a pithy formality, however, Thiäse had prepared a speech, detailing the history of their respective nation’s relations going back to ancient times. 

Around them, the court became restless and Hector, sensing the change, began to snuffle. The king made a silly face at him, which only succeeded in prompting him into crying. Eugenides made soothing noises to no avail as Attolia attempted to continue conducting her ceremony. By the time the prince quieted, the ambassador seemed relieved to be dismissed. She courtesied again and retreated to the edge of the room with her retinue. 

The next item on the court’s docket was a solemn one. Attolis handed his son to a nurse and laid his hand on his wife’s as a baron approached with a petition to confirm his nephew as his new heir. It was the father of his late attendant Philologos, and the grief in the king’s expression as he assented to the request was evident.

The baron knelt and Attolis took his hand and said something too low for the court to hear. Then he looked to the nephew, barely more than a boy himself. “Be worthy of him,” he said gravely. “And by the will of the gods, be blessed in your endeavors.” 

He reached for Attolia again as the baron bowed and she held his hand tightly as the session moved on. There were more claims to settle, the toll of the war still being paid by patronoi and okloi alike. When court was dismissed, she caught the expressionless gaze of the new ambassador, revealing nothing. The king was glaring after her.

“We are trying to repair this relationship,” Attolia reminded him after they had retired to her rooms. Teleus had brought Eugenia back after the end of the court session, happily trying to bite a wooden toy he had carved for her. “You know the ambassador will have taken the scene today as an insult.”

“I don’t see why they shouldn’t grovel a little,” the king said. “They are hardly welcome here. We are not friends and they know very well why not.”

Eugenia hadn’t latched well and Attolia slipped a finger down to detach her mouth so that she could try again. “Alliances on the continent are shifting. We can hold our grudges or we can take advantage.” She knew he knew this, but that the formalities and pretensions of diplomacy still irritated him. It was what he had liked about Yorn Fordad, that he dispensed with formalities and talked plainly. Or so it had appeared at the time. “I do not want to be a queen of endless war, Gen.”

He kissed Hector’s nose, then turned towards her to smile. “Then we will make peace with the Pents,” he promised.

**

Attolia had heard three versions of the morning’s events by the time she saw her husband at their afternoon court session. They all agreed that the king had summoned the Pent ambassador for an audience after his usual morning training with the guard. The accounts disagreed on whether the prince and princess were already in his room or whether they were paraded through as the ambassador was forced to wait in the antechamber.

Since she had seen the twins, Attolia did not need described the effect of the babies in the most ostentatious court clothes that her husband had had made for them. They looked like they had been wrapped in—or, put less generously, swallowed by—the sky, in their gold embroidered blue silk with the long ruffled skirts and the lacy sleeves that Eugenia always chewed on. No amount of explanation of the rate at which children grew, either from his family or his physician, had convinced the king to spare the expense of a full wardrobe that was continuously being replaced.

When the ambassador was finally admitted to Attolis’s room, the king was sitting casually on the couch, his son on his lap, his daughter in a cradle right beside him waving her arms.

“Your Excellency!” he had said in greeting, looking up as if surprised to see her. All the accounts agreed that Eugenides had used only her diplomatic address and not the honorific she was entitled to as a princess in her own country. “How are you settling in? Your rooms are comfortable I hope?”

“They are adequate,” she sniffed, sitting proprietarily in the chair that had been provided for her. Her secretary, a middle aged man with a nervous disposition, looked pained, as if the king might slit their throats for this slight to Attolian hospitality. Eugenides appeared oblivious to this as he fished his daughter out of her cradle with one arm around her chest and thrust her at the startled ambassador. 

“Our...greater concern is that the protection and security shown by all civilized nations to representatives of peace will be honored. I hope that the lapses in hospitality that were shown to my predecessor will not be repeated.” The ambassador did her best to retain her air of reserve and superiority as she awkwardly adjusted the baby in her arms.

“So, so, so.” The king had then waved his dulled hook as if this was a trivial matter. He had new ones, made without the knife edges and less hazardous to curious fingers. “And as we hope that your ambassador’s incivilities will not be repeated, we appear to be in accord.”

Thiäse frowned disapprovingly and stated her opposition. “His actions are not relevant. If we are to start fresh on a new page—”

Eugenides had interrupted then. “Let me be clear, ambassador, there is no new page. Your ambassador insulted Attolia. That is very much relevant.”

“If he insulted your country—”

“Not my country. _Attolia_.” He leaned in and pinned her in his gaze. Eugenia, unfazed, tried to bite one of the ambassador’s large gold rings while she was distracted. “My wife, ambassador. My beloved queen, the commander of my armies, and mother of my heirs. Quedue assaulted her in front of dozens of witnesses and your king had the nerve to demand an apology from _us_.” In his lap, Hector began to fuss and Eugenides tended to him as the ambassador thought carefully of her next words.

“I cannot change what misunderstandings have led to our countries’ current relationship,” she said. “I can only offer you a renewed friendship in good faith and hope that your duty compels you to accept it. My country has much to offer to benefit Attolia’s future.” Her gaze didn’t stray from his face.

The king's expression had been hard. "I leave terms and treaties to my queen. If you want your fresh page, then you know what you must do."

She sniffed at that, straightening her shoulders up and signaling the end of her patience with the audience. “If you would reclaim your offspring, Your Majesty,” the Pent said, “I am late to my next appointment.” She’d then thrust Eugenia into the arms of his attendant Ion and drew herself up to do a full courtesy again. The king made a face and dismissed her. 

“My king.” Attolia greeted him in the throne room later that afternoon as she stepped onto the dais. He was looking unusually smug and had arrived early to the court session, which was itself unusual. “Did you involve our children in some sort of scene with the Pent ambassador?”

Eugenides settled low into his throne, lounging with his legs thrust out and crossed at the ankles. “Am I an actor now?” he said innocently. “Can a new father not spend time with his children without suspicion? We were merely becoming acquainted.”

Attolia was too well-practiced at concealing her feelings to show her exasperation. “Are we friends with the ambassador now or will she be writing her king more notes about the uncivilized Attolian court?”

He raised his eyes to meet hers. “My queen, I can hardly prevent that. I am not sure our court meets her standards and I fear our dear ambassador may love to complain.”

“You will get along then,” Attolia said severely, taking her own throne and arranging her skirts around her.

“I suppose we do have to keep her,” the king said. “Or the next person they send will no doubt be even more intolerable.”

“Perhaps that celebrated physician from their court that Petrus admires,” Attolia suggested innocently. “A healer to heal the divide between our countries.”

“I think your minister would like to open the court session.” The king peered over at the minister of ceremonies and waved hurriedly for him to begin. Attolia pressed her lips together in a line, but allowed the obvious change of subject. 

The next day, the Pent ambassador requested a formal audience with Attolia. The queen sat like a marble statue in her throne as Thiäse offered her king’s humble apologies for the bad behavior of their previous ambassador and assured them that he had been no example of Pent chivalry. When she finished, there was silence and the court held its breath. Then the queen accepted the apology and the ambassador was received fully into the court, the first step towards a fragile peace.

**

The following month, Eddis came to Attolia for the Festival of Moira, the first since the war. She brought the magus and left her husband and daughter in Sounis. While Sophos would have liked to see the plays, Eddis and Attolia needed to inspect some of the Attolian land that was being given for the Eddisian veterans and discuss what kind of oaths her barons who were granted estates in Attolia would take. Part of the Charter of the Three States had ensured that any Eddisian baron who accepted land in one of the other countries would retain a title. Most were staying with Eddis and taking estates in Sounis, but for a few, the allure of fertile land and better yields in Attolia was too much.

All three monarchs were tired after the festival ended, fatigued by this year’s dramatization of their exploits during the war. If it had been a thousand times as glorious as the playwrights had made it out, the price still would have been too high, Attolia thought, watching her husband’s face and anticipating the nightmares he would have that night. They ate dinner in relative quiet. “Hesione would like you to take her oldest son as one of your attendants,” Eddis told Eugenides as the courses were changed, finally breaking the silence.

Eugenides lifted his head, which had been drooping. “Who, Lysander? Surely he isn’t old enough to have received his spear.” The king raised an eyebrow.

Eddis shook her head. “He isn’t, but…She says he is deeply affected by the loss of his father. He was having a bad time in the boys’ house before, and now...”

Attolia suspected he was struggling badly if his mother was willing to remove him from all of his peers and send him to Attolia. Eugenides drummed his fingers on the table as he thought.

They had not replaced the king’s attendants after their heavy losses during the war. Pheris had resisted leaving, though they had told him that his new duties as Erondites should take precedence. Ion, Cleon, Polemus, and Xikander were all who had survived the war. Eugenides both preferred the reduced retinue and was opposed to replacing Hilarion and Philologos, whom he mourned. New attendants from Eddis and Sounis would be necessary eventually though.

“Tell her that he is welcome,” he said eventually. “And we will write to her as well. And perhaps…” the king hesitated and then continued, “Hilarion’s son is of a similar age. It would be good for Lysander to not be the only young one.” He turned to Attolia, suddenly unsure. “Will you talk to the widow Ida?”

“I will,” she agreed, reaching to take his hand. Hilarion’s widow was still residing at court. “But the request itself might be more meaningful coming from you.”

He bowed his head in assent. “So, so, so.”

Eddis stayed for another two days, which were packed with all the various duties and meetings that they could fit into the time.

“It is an interesting choice,” Helen commented to her after being introduced to the ambassador from Pent. “What does your secretary of the archives say?”

Attolia pushed aside the cold feeling that rose inside of her whenever she had to deal with Orutus. In this case, his information seemed sound and both Relius and the magus had agreed with his assessments. “There is some tension with her and the king’s mistress pertaining to influence and, I believe, some gambling debts. The Pents were glad to separate them. She is not an advisor and had no official part in their decision to withhold aid, so they thought we would not object.”

“I see,” said Eddis. “And her objectives?”

“She is very loyal and seems to be in accord with the king and his ministers. They are determined to make an alliance to counter the power of the Gants.”

Eddis raised her eyebrows. “We will see if they can win over the king first.”

Despite the end of the long stalemate over the Pent apology, Eugenides still complained frequently about the Pent ambassador.

“She cheats,” the king said, pacing by the window. Eddis had been gone for two weeks.

Attolia turned to the next page of her report and smothered a yawn. “I was not under the impression that you had played cards with Her Royal Highness, the ambassador.” She had to read the sentence about the Petthaline Valley a second time. Not even in the earliest part of her reign had she felt as tired as she had these last months.

Eugenides gave her an unimpressed look as he continued to pace. “I don’t like our people being in debt to the Pents.”

“Nor do I, but we can hardly stop the Laimonides heir or Lady Anacritus from playing cards as they wish. Their losses are being noted.” They were still waiting on the evidence and opportunity to arrest the secretary of the archives, but there were spies in the palace not from the archives, mostly Relius loyalists who had been dismissed by his successors, who Attolia had set to doublechecking their work. “So far, she has paid her predecessor’s debts and bought a new cloak and a shocking amount of Limnon wine. Taxed at a gold city a cask, I do not think we are losing out.”

Gen kept complaining, listing his grievances as if she hadn’t spoken. The queen yawned again. She would let him talk himself out, Attolia decided. He had not forgiven the Pents for their previous ambassador and was aggrieved to discover that he might like this one.

A little while later, she woke, not in her bed, to a hand on her shoulder. Attolia’s hand was on her knife before she registered the smell of her husband’s soap.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You fell asleep.”

Attolia stifled a yawn and sat up. “My apologies, my king. You were complaining about the ambassador, I believe?”

His eyes crinkled at her. “That was hours ago.”

Attolia’s glance flicked immediately to the candles, which had indeed burned low. “The papers,” she blinked and looked at her desk, clear of the materials she had been working on.

“I signed them. You can read them in the morning.” He brushed a loose strand of hair away from her forehead and she felt a sudden rush of affection for him. “To bed, my queen.” He offered his arm for her to stand up and she took it and kissed his cheek. He smiled back mussily. She had the thought, as she slid under her sheets and waited for him to press in against her, that she should tell him that she loved him, but her eyes were closed before her head hit the pillow.

**

There had been unfarmed land in Attolia before the war, farms and estates abandoned from the time of the plague. Mostly, the land was remote, on the edges of the sea of olives bordering Eddis and in the rocky hills on the coast. The land was difficult to farm, though still better than most of what Eddis had. The war and the civil strife in Attolia had opened up new, more arable land opportunities. The parcel of land that had once belonged to the Baron Erondites and which had reverted to the throne upon the death of Sejanus was one such bounty and the land had been divided up into farms and estates for the Eddisian survivors of the war who had been promised land for their service. More provisions were being made in Sounis and Attolia for the widows and children of the many who had died, but it was the land that was renewing conflicts that were generations old.

By the time summer had reached its worst heat, tensions in the Petthaline Valley had been climbing for weeks as the first Eddisians arrived to inspect their land and found themselves the target of hostility from their new neighbors. More than the lesser patronoi, it was Attolia’s barons, as always, who caused problems. Multiple barons had submitted old claims to parts of the erstwhile Erondites land. Even after the war, the barons still had enough fighting men to try to press their advantage.

Not inclined to indulge them, Attolia sent the Seventh Century and her remaining Eddisian garrison to maintain peace and strongly dissuade the baronial overreach and travelled to oversee their stationing herself. The trip was intended to last no more than three days, just enough time for Attolia to get a sense of the situation and deliver a stern warning to the barons. Instead, it dragged on into weeks after fighting broke out in the town of Petthia and the agora was burned, with both sides blaming the other.

The Attolian instigators fled the town to hide out in the nearby quarries, but emerged several days later to skirmish with the Eddisian unit and the Attolian guard and torch several nearby farms.

It was the sort of conflict that Attolia found even more unpleasant than war, because it was waged against her own people. Too many lives, Attolian and Eddisian both, were caught in the crossfire.

The soldiers managed to surprise the insurgents and capture most of them alive, though Attolia thought grimly that they would rather have died fighting for their cause. Once, she would have hung all the captured rebels all along the main road to dissuade further insurrection. After deliberating with the governor of the province and the Eddisian captain, however, she gave orders to hang the three main leaders in the ruins of the agora and bury them in unmarked graves. Baron Petthis, who she suspected had supported and encouraged the rebels, had been careful to cover his tracks and would escape without punishment. She wished bitterly that Gen were here with a clever trap to ensure he saw justice, but was simultaneously relieved that he had not been forced to mediate between the Attolians and his native countrymen.

Finally, Attolia could return to the capitol. It rained in torrents on the way back and the carriage was frequently delayed by mud and washed-out roads. The royal messenger caught them on the Sacred Way, still a half-day’s ride outside of the city, bearing news that couldn’t wait. Ghasnuvidas, Emperor of the Medes, was dead.

Many long hours later, and far behind the messenger relay she had sent back to the city, Attolia arrived at the palace and went with her guards and attendants straight to the council room. Most of the people she had summoned in the orders were assembled there already: her minister of war, her admiral of the navy, her trade minister, and the ambassadors from Zaboar, Pent, and Ferria.

"It is confirmed?" was her first question.

"Camoria and I have both received the news independently," said the ambassador from Zaboar. "It happened ten days ago."

“And the reaction?” she asked.

“The mercenaries you drove out of Attolia are now scattered around the Empire, available to the highest bidder,” Thiäse said grimly. Attolia was not surprised by her next words. "His heir, Neheeled, has multiple challengers to the throne. If the empire is not already in civil war, it will be very soon."

Attolia thanked the ambassadors for their information and dismissed them. She looked to the remaining Attolian advisors. "Our people? Our traders?" Attolia had no diplomatic relations with the Mede but their merchants had remained throughout the war.

The trade minister shook his head. "We have no news. They will be trying to get out before the country descends into war, but we have no official relations with the Mede right now and no ships ready to bring home our people in the trade houses. In the best case scenario, they may make it to Zaboar. Then they will be safe at least, but likely stranded there until they are able to charter a ship.”

Casartus, the admiral of the navy, then told her what she already knew: they could not bring in a ship from the navy and remove the cannons and guns with any speed. It was out of the question of course to sail an outfitted warship into any of the Mede ports.

The king had slipped in while they were deliberating and smiled at her but spoke infrequently as the meeting went on into the early hours of the morning with no resolution. There was no ship that the Attolians could outfit and send quickly enough for their needs. Without a solution, she finally dismissed them to get rest. As she was returning to her room with her attendants, Eugenides fell in beside her. “You are well?” he asked anxiously. “You look tired.”

"I am fine,” Attolia said shortly. “Where were you when we began?"

The king looked grim. "Evidence against Orutus was finally acquired and I had him arrested earlier in the week. His allies have been protesting, as we expected. They requested an audience earlier and were impossible to be rid of quickly."

“And what have you decided to do with him?” she asked. Attolia had expected relief at the news that Orutus was finally arrested, but felt none.

Eugenides blinked at her. “I was waiting for you,” he said. “I thought you would want to see him interrogated.”

Her stomach rolled at the thought of spending time in the dungeon so soon after seeing the blood and the burned bodies in Petthia. “Naturally,” she said woodenly. “Seeing as it has waited, I suppose there is no need to deal with him tonight.”

Attolia stopped by the nursery to see the children before she went to her own bedchamber. Hector, not asleep as she had expected, took one look at her and began to wail, as if she were a stranger. Attolia froze as a nurse swept in and comforted him, lulling him back to sleep as she retreated from the room.

Her spirits were low when she finally laid down and they were not improved when she and Gen were woken in the middle of the night to the news that Orutus had tried to escape and the entire palace was in an uproar. He had somehow made it out of his cell in the prison, they learned, but had been spotted by a guard and pursued. In his haste, he had slipped at the top of one of the exterior staircases, still damp from the rain.

He could not have made the attempt on his own, Attolia thought dully, staring at the crumpled body. As if from a distance, she heard Eugenides giving orders to Teleus to have the body moved and searched. Someone in the prison, perhaps several someones, had been bribed, and possibly some of the guards on duty as well.

The next day was a horrifying series of arrests, broken only by the small but welcome gesture from the Pent ambassador to offer the Attolians in Medea passage on the merchant ships already sailing to retrieve their own people. They might not be able to take all of their goods, but they would at least be evacuated.

Holding onto this small piece of good news, Attolia slipped into the nursery again before the children’s usual nap time. Hector cried again and it seemed like hours before he quieted in her arms and then almost immediately fell asleep. She reluctantly passed him back to one of the nurses for a nap, thinking of all the work that still needed to be done. Eugenia, playing with her father nearby, at least was calm, if indifferent to Attolia's return. "You have missed a new tooth," Gen grinned at his daughter, trying to cajole her into smiling back.

It was a blow to the throat. Without a word, Attolia turned and walked out of the room, into the black of the passageway, overwhelmed by the tide of emotion suddenly choking her chest.

Back in her own room now, she grabbed the first thing she could reach, a porcelain candle holder, and smashed it. Seeing the broken fragments all around her, Attolia sank to the floor, not crying, not moving at all. She knew her husband had followed her, though she hadn’t heard his footsteps. He knelt beside her, using his cuff to brush away pieces of porcelain from the carpet.

“Irene,” he said, very quietly. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Like the truth?” she snapped, then regretted it more than the candle holder. “I’m sorry.”

He reached out to touch her hand with his.“Irene, you’re shaking.”

The queen she had once been would have never fallen to pieces over so slight a political crisis as the one she had been handling and certainly not for such a mild and unintentional a comment as Eugenides’s had been.

“I should have come with you to the plains,” he said, moving closer.

“Don’t,” she said, not wanting him to make excuses for her. "We talked it over. We agreed."

“And when we have made a decision, we can never admit that it may have been a mistake? We thought it would be a matter of days, a week at most." Without her feeling it, he had removed her crown and set it beside him and was now gently removing her hairpins. She could feel the cold metal of his hook on his other side, bracing her head.

Attolia didn't speak, but he continued anyway, now brushing out her hair with his fingers and untangling it. It was a nice sensation. "Irene, you are exhausted. You fought a war, gave birth, formed a new country, and are now running it and you have never once stopped to rest.”

She shook her head. “If I stop ruling, our barons will divide Attolia for themselves. If I do not go to it, the Petthaline Valley will break out in violence that will spread across the country and take hundreds of innocent lives.” Her throat felt choked. “If I come to meetings with my children in my arms, there is not a baron in my assembly who will ever listen to my orders again."

He laughed. “Your barons are so frightened of you that most of them would jump into the ocean itself before they’d risk your wrath,” he told her. “And if I am wrong, tell me who would disrespect you and I will ensure they never see another dawn." Gen laid his hook on her knee as he made the promise.

He looked so serious in his threat. She laughed and the tension between them finally melted away. Leaning against him, shoulders still shaking, she murmured, “No need for that.”

**

Working with their chamberlain and minister of ceremonies, the king and queen rearranged the court schedule. Public dinners were reduced to only twice a week, though they would still attend the court dances on most nights. Afternoon court sessions would end early on alternate days and they would allow barons to submit some types of requests by writing. Eugenides would oversee the reorganization of the archives with input from Relius and they would alternate visits as needed to monitor the situation in Petthia. The changes to court functions would no doubt irritate some traditionalists and everything would have to be reevaluated after a trial period, but for the first time since the spring, or perhaps even before that, Attolia felt like she had enough time in her schedule to attend both her children and her duty.

Even this late in the summer, it was pleasant in the gardens in the mornings, before the heat of the afternoon set in. Servants had put up a canopy to block the sun and Irene had gone out with all of her attendants and nurses and babies. They sat on pillows and couches, sewing and playing music and enjoying the warm day and the breezes that came from the sea to play with their hair and rustle their skirts.

The children had grown so much, she thought, watching Eugenia snatch the rattle from her brother’s hands. Hector bore this in good humor and grabbed at the little sewn sheep she had abandoned. A year before, Attolia had been pregnant and waging an impossible war. Now, she closed her eyes and turned her face up to smell the salt air.

“Why hello. What’s going on here?”

Attolia opened her eyes and smiled at Eugenides, returned from examining the progress made on the temple of Hephestia. His attendants fanned out to take seats around the shaded area. “You enjoy the gardens so much, I was inspired to appreciate them myself this morning.”

Eugenia had used a couch to pull herself up to a standing position and everyone watched as she took a wobbling step towards her father and then tipped. Quicker than any of the other onlookers, including Attolia herself, he caught her, scooping her up beneath her arms as her knees gave way. She squealed with delight as he sat down on the grass with her, offering Attolia a rueful smile.

The days grew long and Attolia welcomed back more of Eddis’s slowly-emptying court, including two of her sisters-in-law, who took one look at the queen and immediately suggested a hunting party.

“No children,” Clymene said, in a tone of voice that invited no arguments and reminded Attolia strongly of her sister-in-law’s late father. “Don’t talk about them, don’t even think about them. What possessed you to have twins I can’t begin to imagine,” she muttered, as if Attolia had picked them out like she might select a new horse. Gen was making a face, but was careful to not let his sister see. Clymene, like Helen, had trained with a sword as a girl, and, even more unusually, in wrestling.

Attolia had been reluctant to go, but it felt like a great weight rolled off her shoulders once she was outside the city and in the shady woods. Teleus and Relius had both joined, with Clymene and Penelope, who were far more enthusiastic hunters than their younger brother. Some of Attolia's attendants were there, with the ambassador of the Pents and a number of other courtiers from Attolia and Eddis both. It was a fine day for it and there had been no hunting trips since before the war.

When they returned, Eugenides must have been on one of the roof walks or terraces with a view of the main gate because he had come to greet the hunting party, attendants in tow, by the time Attolia dismounted.

“You are back early,” he observed. His sisters had also dismounted and were fussing over their nephew, now one of the king’s attendants. He was keeping a wary eye on them.

“Thiäse’s hip was paining her so we decided to return after lunch. Chloe brought down a _boar_ ,” she reported. “Even Teleus was impressed.” Attolia leaned in to kiss him and laughed when he wrinkled his nose. “Do I smell too strongly of horses, my king?” she teased him. “You know Clymene says that in Medea, they once hunted boar on elephants?”

He heaved a dramatic sigh. “My sister would corrupt my wife and now my elephants too.”

“Oh, it is Clymene who has corrupted me? You aren’t usually so humble about your achievements, my king.” From somewhere behind the king, one of his attendants snorted. “I see none of our guards has assaulted you this time.”

“No, in fact, I had a quiet morning with all you barbarians out of the palace,” Eugenides told her loftily as they reentered the palace so that Attolia could clean up. “I read the Thebaid in the library and no one interrupted me to solve their tedious feuds about grazing land and sheep.”

“Oh? I thought Thiäse told you that our copy was a bad translation?”

“She claims that.” He waved his hook dismissively. They had made it back to Attolia’s rooms. “The translator somehow made an enemy of her king’s grandfather. She has been reticent on the details.”

“You mean her father? So you are reading it to spite her?” Attolia eyed him suspiciously. Eugenides raised his head to draw her attention away with a kiss. A minute later, he pulled back and summoned one of her attendants to draw a bath. Attolia, laughing, ducked to kiss him a final time and waved him out of the room.

A little while later, she heard the door open. “I’m surprised you waited so long,” she commented, examining her knee without turning as she lifted her leg from the bath.

“My queen.” Attolia stiffened and immediately turned. It was Phresine, and she looked as if all the blood had been drained from her face. “You must come immediately.”

The nurse was in hysterics. “He was right there, Your Majesty. I only turned away for a moment to wrap the princess for her nap and when I finished and turned around—” She collapsed into a fresh set of tears. Eugenia woke, distrubed by the scene around her and the king went to her automatically, forestalling her cries.

Attolia’s world was dissolving into darkness and she struggled to pull a breath. Her chest felt like it was being crushed, like someone had piled great stones on it, and it hurt, it _hurt_. “The prince is gone,” she repeated for confirmation, hoping in vain that she had only misunderstood. “Could he have—they have learned to move very fast, you know.”

“We searched the apartments and the rest of the floor,” the squad leader assigned to the prince and princess said, head bowed. “We saw nothing. Your Majesty, no one came in and no one went out. No one even walked by in the hallway.

She reached blindly for her husband and found his shoulder there beside her. “Close the gates to the palace,” Attolia ordered. “Get a message to the city walls too. No one leaves.”

“Your Majesty, the Great Market,” said someone else in the room. “There are hundreds—perhaps thousands—”

“No one,” she repeated quietly. “Do it now.”

Everyone scrambled to obey.

“You will search the passages?” she asked Eugenides, knowing that his mind would already be ahead of hers. No one knew the palace better.

The king put his hand on her arm. “We will find him.” 

He couldn’t know that, not with all the blessings of his gods. Attolia’s eyes roamed the room until she found her daughter, oblivious on Teleus’s hip, tiny hand fisted in his cloak. Dimly, she heard the sound of Eugenides dividing up the guards to search and then he was gone, slipping away himself to check the hidden passages and secret rooms of the Thieves.

“Find Relius,” she told Teleus brittlely. She needed all of the people she trusted, those who knew the palace well and not just the sunny royal wing. “He—he will aid in the search. Keep Eugenia with you. I am going to pray.”

Her mind was spinning, a white fog of fear overrunning everything as she moved through the palace unseeing. Always, Attolia had known what to do, had formed a plan with the resources she had. Now she felt as numb, as deprived of hope as she had been in that little room in Ephrata not so many years ago, thinking her fiancé dead and seeing a desolate future stretch out in front of her. It felt like another lifetime.

Attolia had meant to go to the room that Eugenides had consecrated when he had confronted his gods. It had been abandoned since then, but she didn’t make it all the way. She stopped, robbed of her last fragments of calm in an instant at the sight of a fountain where Gen had let the twins splash in the shallow water only last week. Attolia had worried about the damp clothes and had shooed them all back to the nursery. Leaving her attendants at the door of the interior courtyard, she went to the fountain, carved in relief with images of gods who had been so worn down as to be unrecognizable. Her knees hit the tile.

What could she ask for? What could she offer? She had never forgiven the Eddisian gods for betraying their Thief, but they had returned Gen to her once in the palace and again during the war. She didn’t dare to hope she might be so lucky a third time. Attolia was not so beloved to them as her husband was.

“Your Majesty.”

She had not heard the door open, only the voice. For a dizzying moment, Attolia remembered her mother. Her father’s second wife, she had been young, from a remote province, chosen for her beauty more than any political acumen. Attolia had learned of her in fragments as she had grown, never quite getting the whole. People said that she had never settled into court life and its many intrigues, that her place in the affections of her husband had been usurped by a series of more ambitious concubines and mistresses. She had died when Irene was hardly out of the nursery herself and left only the barest of impressions: a gentle voice, a pale smile.

Attolia didn’t look at the maid who had spoken. “Is there any news?” She knew the answer. Eugenides would be here, or Teleus.

The maid’s slippers hushed along the stone as she approached. A shock went through Irene as cool fingers lifted her chin and she rose, stunned at the presumption, glad for an excuse to rage at someone.

The woman was taller than Irene and she was smiling. No one had ever smiled at Irene in quite that way before. Attolia’s scorching reprimand died in her throat.

“Look again,” she said, in a voice as gentle as rain, and pressed her cool lips to Irene’s forehead.

Phresine and Chloe were still waiting, red-eyed and anxious, at the door. Attolia didn’t ask them if they had seen anyone go in. She swept past them, hurrying back towards the royal wing of the palace towards the nursery, past the guards, and threw open the doors. “Look again,” she told the stunned guards and attendants. “Look everywhere. Be careful. Take everything from the room if you have to.”

She waited, clutching her fear around her like a blanket, too scared even to hope. Gen arrived and she leaned against him.

A shout came from Relius, translating from Pheris as the boy sat up from the floor. He was looking at a panelled writing desk that had been pushed to the far wall, not much use in a nursery. Partially hidden behind a couch, it had escaped their notice, as had the open door on its floor-level cabinet.

The prince was curled inside the empty cabinet, mostly blocked from vision by the large ornamental amphora between the desk and the couch. He had crawled in and fallen asleep, lulled by the darkness. Now, dim light and quiet both removed as Pheris pulled open the door, he blinked awake.

”Ma!” he babbled, seeing her and banging an excited fist on the wood panelling that surrounded him. Attolia snatched him up.

Taken aback by the sudden attention and the sight of his mother in tears, Hector began to cry. Attolia had never been so happy to hear it. “Shhh,” she held him close, too tightly, and he wailed a minute longer as she loosened her hold and rocked him against her chest. “You’re alright,” she breathed, kissing his forehead, then his hair. Gen’s hand was a steady presence on her back, arms wrapped around them both. “Thank the gods, you’re alright.”

**

Although Hector was no worse the wear for the episode, Attolia did not forget it quickly and neither did her king. She dreamed frequently of how it might have been if they had not found him and Eugenides had confessed one night that he was nervous whenever the children weren’t in his sight.

It was not just their ever-improving mobility that marked their growth. The twins spoke more and more every day, mostly babbling but increasingly, recognizable words. Eugenides had taken to sitting them in his lap next to the hearth at the end of the day to tell them the stories that his mother had told him. Hector and Eugenia had some interest in their father’s voice but little interest in staying still and one or the other would attempt to crawl away from him every few minutes and have to be hauled back, giggling and shrieking with glee.

Attolia listened in, sometimes staying and sometimes working nearby as Gen affected voices and animals, making the twins laugh and try to imitate him. Mostly, he told stories about the Eddisian gods, although sometimes he spoke instead of the gods of the Medes or some of his ancestors’ tamer exploits. One night, Attolia, pausing by the door to listen to the rolling cadence of his Eddisian accent, caught the name of their own country.

“—the most beautiful queen in the world, found the Thief of Eddis sneaking around in her palace. This was long before the three kingdoms of Hephestia became one country.” His audience was not particularly absorbed by his history lesson and Eugenides caught her eye and smiled. He looked impossibly content, his children squirming in his lap and the burden of his crown a distant care. The firelight caught on the silver of his hook.

“I’m not sure this is an appropriate bedtime story,” Attolia said, hearing the frostiness in her own voice and hating it.

The king snagged Eugenia as she made another attempt to escape and redirected her in her mother’s direction. “Here, you hold on to her.” She was a speedy crawler and it was only a few moments before Attolia was forced to bend and scoop her into her arms.

“Mama!” She babbled insensibly and tried to grab for the seal ring on her hand, but quieted as Irene settled on a chair next to the hearth, holding her in her lap. The queen stared into the fire as her husband cleared his throat, seemingly unaffected.

“Long before you were born, the Queen of Attolia, who was the most beautiful queen in the world, found the Thief of Eddis sneaking around in her palace.” Eugenides started from the beginning. Attolia sat very still and stroked her daughter’s hair as he spoke. “This was back when three kingdoms of the Hephestial Peninsula were always at war, and the Thief of Eddis was sneaking where he did not belong. The queen knew he could come and steal her away from her people at any time, so it was a great relief when she finally caught him.”

“Gen—”

“Shh.” He brushed off her protests. “I’m telling the story. You can tell your version when I’m done.” Eugenides continued, as if she hadn’t interrupted. “To stop him, she cut off his hand and sent him back to Eddis. But it was too late. The Thief had already fallen in love with her. He knew that he couldn’t live without her so he stole her away from her guard and asked her to marry him. She agreed and the countries promised to be friends forever and the queen and the Thief lived happily for the rest of their days.”

For a few minutes, the only sound in the room was the crackle of the fire in the heart and the occasional noise from the children. At last, giving in to his son’s squirming, Eugenides allowed him to escape towards Attolia’s chair. “Na!” The queen set her daughter down as well and the twins crawled towards each other, thrilled to be reunited.

“You did not need to cast yourself as the villain,” Attolia said quietly. “They will find out the truth eventually.”

“I never lie,” said her king, unbothered. “And anyway, the Thief is always the hero.”

That in itself was a lie, but Attolia let it pass. They sat together and let the fire burn down. Hector had drifted to sleep against the king’s chest and Eugenides passed his good hand over his head, lingering. 

“My sister says that if we tell them when they are young it will be easier to hear. They will never know any differently.”

Attolia snorted. None of his sisters had had to tell their children that their mother had maimed their father.

“It will be years before they understand any of it,” he said to her later, after they had relinquished the children back to their nurses and were preparing for bed themselves. She eyed him, much less sure than he was of their understanding or their forgiveness.

“I’m always right,” he reminded her, and kissed her gently and with the barest hint of smugness.

**

The king usually took the same route with his attendants back from his practice sessions with the guard, so it was not a difficult task for the Pent ambassador to arrange to accidentally run into the group. The rap of her cane against the stone floors echoed ahead of her as she approached. The ambassador still insisted on courtesying formally when they met, adhering to the strict protocol demanded in her own court despite the king’s attempts to reform her. “Your Majesty.” She somehow managed to look down her nose at him, despite being shorter than the king. “How fortuitous to meet you here. I have...mistakenly received a communiqué from the Gants that you may find diverting.”

“Diverting,” repeated the king flatly, eying her suspiciously. “What now, Thiäse? Is this an attempt to poison our relationship with the Gants? Embarrass their ambassador?”

“Your Majesty, you wound me.” Thiäse began to retract the letter. “It pertains only to a trivial matter. Of course Your Majesty isn’t interested in mere gossip. I apologize for any offense—”

“No, no, give it here.” She handed him the letter smugly and the king glared. “Aren’t you missing a card game somewhere?”

Thiäse sniffed. “I never gamble before lunch. It would be the height of incivility.”

“No, of course not,” said the king. “Continue your fortuitously timed walk then, by all means.”

Eugenides read the letter to his wife gleefully that night, lingering on the assessment of his own character. He was lying on his stomach halfway down the bed, his right arm thrown casually over Attolia’s waist. The fingers of his left hand were splayed over the parchment, pinning it to the sheets so that he could better read what the Gants had written about him.

“The king is ruled by his wife’s thighs and it is she who holds the power—”

Irene raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you ruled by my thighs?”

He grinned up at her and scraped his teeth lightly against her hip. “Oh, assuredly, my queen.”

Attolia made a pleased sound. He crawled up the bed on his elbows until their faces were close and she could see the ragged edges of his scar, the smudges of kohl rimming his eyes, the traces of gold in his hair.

“Will you rule me again?” he whispered, a breath against her lips.

The letter was abandoned.

**

To mark a year since the Peninsula’s defeat of the Mede, there were feasts to celebrate the victory and vigils to commemorate the dead. Attolia and her king still grieved their losses, still saw their dead in their sleep, but the country was moving on. The twins had their birthday, the most amusing part of which had been the king’s reaction to the gift from the Pent ambassador: two young pony foals.

“They will not be riding for years still,” Attolia was obliged to tell her after, once Eugenides had said his part.

“Call it a symbol more than a practical gift,” said Thiäse, with slightly less formality than her usual. After the Pent’s aid in evacuating the Attolians from Medea, negotiations had begun for a formal alliance. Progress was slow and the treaties would not be finalized for months—possibly years—but the parties involved were hopeful.

It was nearing winter when, flush off a successful harvest, Attolia rifled through proposed designs for an expansion of the port, listening to the slight tap of her husband’s feet against the floor as he worked at the desk in her room.

“Helen would like to know if we are coming for the spring festival.” The king scratched a note onto one of the reports he was looking at and slid the edge of his hook between the leafs to turn the page. The children had been put to sleep some time ago, and so he was wearing his sharp-edged hook to better handle the parchment.

Attolia cleared her throat, spying the opportunity that she had been looking for all day. “We may not be available to travel next spring.”

“Oh?” said the king absently, looking up from the letter. “What do we— _oh_.”

Irene’s cheeks were pink and one hand rested on her stomach. The king was frozen for a moment, eyes wide, and then Eugenides slipped to his knees beside her chair.

“You are pleased?” she asked, smiling at him and touching his cheek briefly. Her heart felt so full that she thought it might burst forth from the cage of her ribs entirely.

His eyes were bright and he brought her hands together and kissed them. “My incomparable queen.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to [Storieswelove](/users/Storieswelove/) for betaing and to everyone for reading. Happy Yuletide to all!


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